So I’m reading articles, drawing comics, or playing video games when I run into another article mentioning a group of people taking an already memorable logo or sign and using it in their cause or event. Plots were planned on a social media platform called Parler, the capital was rioted, poop all over the walls, people stealing, and then a photographer took a picture of one rioter with zip ties and a Marvel’s Punisher logo on an American flag…
People have been stealing artworks since comic-cons have been around and sellers in “artist allies” (that’s the location in comic-cons that artists can sell their artworks printed on products.) were selling other artists comic book art printed on posters. Drawlines has printed comic books, posters, pins, stickers, and more for these hardworking creative people. Drawlines has been printing artworks for several years now. The creativity they put into the meaning of a design takes a lot of time, pencils, and paper to make sure their character’s symbol represented something. Assholes like the riots or protesters who have no creativity take these works from artists and in one day destroy the symbol for themselves without taking into consideration the artist.
The seditionists that invaded the Capitol today wore a Punisher logo. I say @marvel needs to either aggressively enforce their trademark so it isn’t printed everywhere or abandon the Punisher completely. You can’t allow your characters to be used by terrorists. pic.twitter.com/CLHv243N9u
— ComicTropes (@CTropes) January 7, 2021
Side note: that other guy photobombing the image… THAT’S NOT HOW YOU WEAR A MASK ASSHOLE!!! Come on, if you are going to storm a capital you should at least do it correctly in the mist of a pandemic, duh.
One of the heavy long term writers for Punisher, Garth Ennis, says it better than anyone else:
“I’ve said this before a couple of times, but no one actually wants to be the Punisher. Nobody wants to pull three tours of duty in a combat zone with the last one going catastrophically wrong, come home with a head full of broken glass, see their families machine-gunned into bloody offel in front of their eyes, and then dedicate the rest of their lives to cold, bleak, heartless slaughter. The people wearing the logo in this context are kidding themselves, just like the police officers who wore it over the summer. What actually want is to wear an apparently scary symbol on a t-shirt, throw their weight around a bit, then go home to the wife and kids and resume everyday life. They’ve thought no harder about the Punisher symbol than the halfwits I saw [on Wednseday], the ones waving the Stars & Stripes while invading the Captial building
No one’s going to suggest that the American flag is now a fascist symbol and should be treated as such, just because a bunch of would-be fascists employed it yesterday. I doubt there’s anyone who would suggest that any of the clowns who wore the Punisher skull [Wedseday] would have acted any differently in DC had it, or the character never existed. They did what they did because their demented turd of a leader convinced them the election had been stolen; if you’re ready to take violent action on that basis then no bloody, silly t-shirt you wear will have any bearing on the line you’ve crossed. In fact, it’s completely irrelevant”
Gerry Conway, co-creator of Punisher, has a long history of speaking out against individuals — especially police officers — misusing Frank Castle’s logo as a symbol for celebrated violence as well. “Any ‘cop’ who wears a Punisher logo in his official capacity is identifying law enforcement with an outlaw,” Conway wrote on social media in October 2019. “These ‘cops’ are a disgrace to serious police officers everywhere. They show an imbecilic level of irresponsibility and should be fired immediately.”
A number of rioters were seen with a modified version of the white skull during the January 6 insurrection, which saw hundreds of Donald Trump supporters storm the Capitol as lawmakers attempted to certify the results of the 2020 election.
The Punisher is characterized as a murderer driven by vengeance; a former marine who long ago left behind his sense of patriotism and duty due to the loss of his family, and many protestors appeared to deem his logo suitable to represent their beliefs in last week’s riots. Adaptations of the iconic skull were spotted on rioters’ shirts, backpacks, and hats, with most of the designs featuring the logo on top of the United States flag. Due to the result of the chaos, many Marvel fans have called for the logo to be either scrapped or better protected against misuse. Having this logo removed will never happen, but being better protected makes more sense. The logo has been around for years. Even if it’s removed from all entertainment indie artists are still going to reprint the logo themselves. Scrapping the tv show is also a stupid idea. What is the point of artists and writers to come up with entertainment if it will be miss used in one way or another? Disney is just going to have to find out who these individuals are and start handing out lawsuits for misuse of their logo if that’s a thing. But in reality, it’s just going to cause more issues for Disney.
